Gilded Silver
by ReWritten-string-of-stories
Summary: celebrating NaNoWriMo  "...love is all there is." - Gary Zukav. Four very short one-shot pieces that serve as snapshots in the lives of Draco and Hermione at different stages in their love in four different realities.
1. Winter Song

******Story - Gilded Silver  
********Genre - A Wide Range  
************Preface.A/N - This is a five one-shot piece that I've been working on as an 'encore' for you all, my precious 'Rainbow' fans. That said, let it be noted here that only two of them are Rainbow-compliant, and not all of them are about happy endings. Each one is modeled after a song - for every snapshot, a music accompaniment. I'd been needing some sort of challenge so take this as both an ode to the DracoXHermione coupling and as work in need of criticism - every little bit of feedback counts. I'll be loading them one at a time, and they are in no particular order, though I'll bunch the happy ones at the end. Message/review if you want a full background of the pieces. ************Still...I hope you all do enjoy.**

* * *

.this is my winter song to you.

.ingrid michaelson & sara bareilles.

* * *

Insomnia was quickly becoming more intimate with her than any sleep sickness had any right to be. It was the fourth night this month, and without anything on hand to send her deep into the land of slumber, Hermione was left awake and alert and very very quiet as she crossed her bedroom to take a seat at the window. She didn't have to look at the clock on her bedside table to know that it was already drawing close to two o'clock. Knowing the time didn't make any difference - if knowledge of time could have lulled her to bed, she would have settled back under the sheets and drawn the comforter over her head. Indeed, she paid the clock no mind.

Instead, she moved slowly across the room. No one would have ever pegged her as the kind who wore actual night-gowns but she enjoyed the freedom of a dress, the way the folds whispered around her knees and shins, and how very warm wool could be during winter. A gift from her Mum, just in time for the December cold, and a thoughtful one that she could not have done without. Daddy had even joked that it could double as a half-twenty-fourth birthday present in the letter he'd written. Hermione had read the letter, caressing the folds and the corners until they were dogeared, but hadn't found a way to send her love back yet. The letter was folded neatly on the bedside table, next to the clock, underneath two letters from Ginny and Luna, and four a piece from both Harry and Ron...all of them were as dog-eared as the one from her parents...none from the pile had been answered.

Hermione dropped down into the love-seat rather heavily. The weight was coming slowly now, but it was coming nonetheless. The weight turned her sluggish when she wasn't paying attention and the weight made her tired. She now had to deliberate her movements, map out of her motions, and ration energy. The doctor had assured her that some women felt the effects of pregnancy more keenly than others. She had simply marveled that a new life could so drain its source, and wondered whether she would have enough energy for the both of them in the coming five months. She supposed that it was a good thing that this place was a small apartment, rather than a house, because everything she needed was close enough. Only a bit of food from the kitchen, only a few supplies from the pantry. Sometimes, she summoned enough will-power to completely finish a load of laundry. More often than not, she was only a few steps away from the bathroom. The apartment was more than enough for her.

She flicked the dark green throw hard - once, twice - and watched it settle over legs and billow around her waist. It was one of the few things she still had from him, and sometimes if she pressed her nose against it, she could imagine his arms around her. She doubted very much that the trick would work right now, however much she needed it to. So she tilted her head against the glass of the windowpane and stared outside. The bedroom faced the empty lots that stood behind the apartment complex, and it afforded her the perfect view of unadulterated snow. It was fascinating, truly, how snow came this time of year and simply dusted everything away. The moonlight played havoc with one's vision at night, brightening the snow until the canvas of the world was nothing but a brilliant white. Just the other night, Hermione had summoned enough energy to make it outside and sit in the whiteness.

The whiteness was calm. The whiteness was blank. The whiteness erased everything.

She'd forgotten her shoes (she could surely imagine him scolding her, for such an action was not very Hermione Granger-like) and couldn't stand the cold for longer than five minutes. Still...the numbness had been a welcome change. She had dipped her hands into soft white flakes almost an inch deep and watched them melt in her too warm hands. When a handful had melted, she'd decided that the cold might be the end of her feet. Minutes later, the tingling that signaled a return of feeling overwhelmed her in the kitchen. To take her mind off of it, she'd slept.

Sleep was beneficial, sleep was helpful, and most of all, it was a welcome break from consciousness.

Tonight, the snow of the lots was smooth and untrammeled. The boys two doors down clearly hadn't been out there to play yet today. The two lone trees beyond were as skinny and bare as they had been all winter, and for some reason, didn't carry as much snow as they should. Hermione thought they looked wrong, somehow, but she could never summon enough interest to articulate just what about them was incorrect. It was just as well since she only had enough interest to pour into single thing at a time (which, unfortunately, sometimes included herself). Cold seeped in from the miniscule gap that marked where the windowpane left off and the windowsill began. She didn't mind the cold now that she was so used to it, and now she was absorbed by the insubstantial clouds her breath made against the temperature.

Insomnia and fatigue were working together to slow Hermione down considerably. Now, the smartest witch of her age could spend hours in her bed, angled toward the window with her incredible mind drifting to and fro. The doctor didn't think that was healthy...Hermione couldn't find it within herself to care too much about it. She joked that her little boy was taking enough energy as it was - could she be blamed for her this newly formed habit? The doctor had then countered with a detailed lecture on the effects of grief on a new mother, one which she had heard many times from him, and Hermione had tuned him out.

She didn't want to listen to him speak.

Her nose, pressed up against the glass, was cold. Her feet were a little chilled as well. Perhaps a small warming charm was in order- Or, well, it would be if she could summon her wand to herself. The thought itself made her tired, and she lost the battle before it began. She was content to huddle underneath the old green throw that reminded her of him, and watch her breath take form in front of her. She was fine with remaining in the window seat for as long as she were awake this time. No doubt she would soon surpass 'tired' and head down the road to 'unbearable fatigue' but Hermione would return to bed later. She might even answer one of those letters full of love, full of sympathy, full of condolences...later. What she wanted now was the cold seeping into the room, the numbness that could cure the loud silence of a new apartment, and perhaps the feeling of snow melting in her hands.

All the rest could wait.

_**Fin.**_


	2. Feel Goods

.

* * *

.and as my heart begins to pound, i smiled.

.miguel jontel.

* * *

Draco was completely sure that sweating was against the laws written down in the Malfoy Canon - in fact, if his excellent memory served him well, it was discussed briefly in both rule seventeen and twenty five, then explicitly forbidden in rule thirty-three. As he surreptitiously smoothed his hands on his trousers underneath the restaurant table, he felt justified in being worried that he was close to breaking said rule. He had done his best to adhere to this adage all day but Merlin knew that it had been ridiculously difficult. Who could have predicted that successfully asking Hermione Granger on a date could have resulted in today's drama?

Let no one say that Draco Malfoy was faint of heart. He might be a Slytherin through and through, but he had braved the fires of hell to get to this afternoon. Perhaps the better directive would be he had convinced Pansy that he wasn't the man for her, prepped his father for the possibility of a Muggle-born witch as his son's girlfriend, warned off that lowly Cormac McLaggen with copious threats of bodily harm, had a grand total of two civil conversations with Weasley and Potter, before implementing Plan Woo Granger. Set-up had taken approximately seven weeks, in between floundering underneath the monumental Seventh Year workload, but he had been rewarded for his efforts. Preparation made perfect, as Malfoy Canon twelve stated, and preparation had cleared most of the obstacles of asking his target on a date.

Of course, Hermione Granger was by no means easy to obtain. Still, let no one say that Draco Malfoy was not determined. He'd derived no end of satisfaction from the incredulous look she'd thrown him after reading the simple note he'd passed her behind Professor Snape's back, then the downright suspicious one she'd shot across the Great Hall when he'd winked at her. Let's not forget the way her eyes had narrowed after he'd picked up a book she'd dropped in the hallway, or her bemusement after an interesting Care of Magical Creatures class in which they were partnered up to . Well, that last event might have clued her into his feelings. In his defense, she'd been looking so adorably flushed and that single curl had been on the verge of exiting her messy bun that he couldn't have kept his hands from tucking it behind her ear.

Oh yes, the smartest witch of her age had probably got an inkling of Draco Malfoy's intentions towards her.

Still, that didn't explain his current predicament. It seemed as if half the House of Slytherin and almost all of the House of Gryffindor had decided that they too needed to be jammed into Madame Rosmerta's. He was sure that there were more than a few Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs interspersed in the crowd - all apparently avid watchers of the date that he and Hermione were _supposed_ to be on. He could hardly call it such when Potter and Weasley were busy glaring on his far left, Crabbe and Goyle were whispering quite audbily on his right, and he was hard pressed to hear anything an increasingly irritated Hermione was saying over the buzz of their audience.

He rubbed his hands again and decided that he - they - had had enough. He stood - the movement causing a sudden hush in the bar - and first addressed the crowd.

"I hope you all know that we intend to take points from every House once Hogsmeade is over." Titters exploded and under cover the noise, he whispered to his date over the table. "Shall we leave?"

She looked at once amused and grateful.

"I thought you'd never ask." She made that adorable huffing noise that he'd hated to like before the War, and loved to coax out of her after it. "I've already had a talk with Harry and Ron, and I expected they would have helped ward off _this_. As Head Girl, I would never dream of abusing my power but I am certainly thinking of it."

She surveyed the crowd with a haughty look that would do his father proud. The thought made him blink a little bit - he really had to stop thinking in the long term. As cocky as he was, he wasn't an idiot. Just because he imagined no other woman could ever be his equal didn't mean Providence would see fit to hand her to him. He had been blessed by the fact that his involvement in the War had been minimal and non-compliant and he'd been blessed by the fact that his godfather had gone straight to Headmaster Dumbledore to vouch for that. She'd seen how inclined to forgive she was, despite how terrible he had been in their earlier years, and he knew it was only this that had gotten them thus far.

Now, if he could only get the rest of Hogwarts school to leave well enough _alone_ he would be able to prove to her that he was more than worth her time.

"I'm glad you agree." Just to really start the rumor mill going, he helped her out of her seat with a proprietary hand at the small of her back. If the action happened to induce gasps out of the crowd and something amusingly like a roar from Potter and Weasley, it was really quite coincidental. He was taking no pleasure out of tormenting two thirds of the Golden Trio. Really. "I'm wondering if anyone will have the guts to follow us out of here."

Hermione broke into a smile that reminded him of why he was worrying about rule thirty-three of the Canon in the first place. He beat down the urge to wipe his hands again and smiled back at her. When she moved forward to navigate the tables - whose residents were suddenly looking extremely interested in the ceiling or their Butterbeers or their food - he had to physically restrain himself from smirking back at the Boy Who Lived and his faithful best friend. When he'd successfully conquered the urge, he followed her out the door and into the snowy Hogsmeade main street. As soon as the door closed behind them, she let out a sigh that rather neatly summed up how he felt about the entire situation.

"Now, we can finally get started," he said. He was prepared when the full force of another smile was turned upon it, and turned the butterflies in his stomach to more productive work - like growling. It was a good thing that the wind was making too much sound for her to hear it. "I'm going to admit that I haven't eaten all day. How does Honeydukes sound to you?"

"Did I make you nervous?" Draco was pleasantly surprised that she felt comfortable enough to tease him already. This was a good sign. "Is that why you haven't eaten yet?"

"And if I said yes?"

He started to walk forward, trusting that she would keep up.

"I would wonder if you were telling the truth," she glanced up at him with a half-smile on her face. "And probably come to the conclusion that you weren't."

"I solemnly swear that Malfoys never lie." She clearly didn't believe him so he revised with a wink. "I solemnly swear that Malfoys never lie outright without reason."

She laughed and the laugh shook him all the way to his core. If anyone had told Draco at age eleven on Platform Nine and Three Quarters that a good portion of his education would be spent mooning over a Muggle-Born witch, he might just about laughed his head off. Or gone off the deep end and hexed the messenger. Now, he couldn't see how he could have possibly stayed away from her. It was amazing how much stronger the effect of her laughter was up close - he felt warmer just by gazing at her. Even the wild hair he used to glorify in making fun of was fascinating - just last week in Charms he'd sat behind her in class and figured out that not only was each individual lock a curly wilderness but she actually had about five different shades of brown. A rich dark chocolate interlaced with everything from auburn to a honeyed hazel to even a russet in the sunlight. It was fortunate that Blaise had gotten in the habit of shocking him with his wand before it became too obvious.

"Come on, come on," Hermione said through laughter, "weren't you supposed to be hungry?"

Never let it be said that Draco Malfoy was a love besotted fool, however. He was determined to conquer the rampaging butterflies and the way his eyes seemed to follow her around whenever she was in the room. He refused to let his mind look past Seventh Year and he refused to fall in love without a fight. Well...sort of. When he took her hand as they continued to wander down Hogsmeade's main road, a future he'd never imagined was unrolling in his mind. When she squeezed to let him know it was alright, he suspected right there and then that he was just going to have to toss the Malfoy Canon out for the afternoon.

Rule thirty-three, amongst others, was well on its way to being broken.

**_Fin_**


	3. What Happened to Us?

**A/N - I do hope you all take the time to listen to the songs that inspire the pieces.**

* * *

.that's what i keep asking myself over and over again.

.NLT.

* * *

"And you expect me to believe this, why?"

"Because you're supposed to _trust_ me."

Another morning, another bloody row - nothing but the usual events of a normal day in the months after Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger had moved in together. Two years into the relationship that hadn't been nearly as rock as their friends had thought it would be, they had thought cohabitation the next logical step. He'd made it clear on more than one occasion that he meant to marry her, and she'd made it clear that she wouldn't have any other. 'Opposites attract', Rita Skeeter had declared in her tawdry little magazine, 'but often combust'. Honestly, as much as either of them hated to admit it, the woman was starting to sound as if she had the right of it.

Some days, it felt as if the thickening tension in the air was a blanket that might slow and stifle them before the sun set. Others, it felt as if the atmosphere was quick with some unnamed energy and unbound force that would turn a single glance into the spark that caused an explosion. All days, it felt as if their relationship was disintegrating before their very eyes.

"Draco, you came home _drunk_ off your arse with lipstick on your collar."

"And Blaise explained to you what happened before he put me to bed, didn't he?"

She used to think that their relationship was one of the very best things that had happened after the fall of Voldemort but she was rethinking that all the time now. She used to allow herself to dream up girlish fantasies that involved a short engagement and a lifelong commitment to one another after the marriage. She had pictured children with his lovely silver blonde hair - sons with his special way of smirking, and daughters who laughed like him. Now, it was all she could do not to leave the room when he walked in. Now, she spent more time speaking with Ron and Harry than she did to the man she lived with. Now, her single escape was her job - working at the Ministry to improve the treatment of houselves and other non-wand wielding magical beings was replacing her deteriorating relationship.

"Oh, because Blaise is completely unbiased and would tell me the truth even if you asked him not to?"

"What the hell do you need to see, hm? The memory itself? Should I take _Veritaserum_?"

He couldn't understand why things had come to this. He regretted the day two months ago that he had asked her to move into the Manor with him. It was as if two years of trust-building had blown away like chaff in the wind. She was suspicious, she was inplacable, and she was unhappy. Fighting was nothing new to their relationship, and fighting was never going to be completely erased from their relationship but...fights had never escalated into tears and slammed doors, strained silence at the living table, staged arguments that included name-calling that was as petty and small as it was hurtful. He was drinking more at this stage in his life than he ever had before, and he was making the rounds at the pub with the boys an awful lot more frequently as well.

Things had never gone this badly before.

How could Draco Malfoy, twenty-seven years of age, have fallen so far? He knew he was fast approaching a downward spiral that would eventually affect his Quidditch play. He knew that she had every reason to distrust him after the mark on his collar but he was still angry that his word meant so little to her at this juncture. Two years of trust-building meant nothing? And more importantly, was he so inept at proving his love for her that she could no longer believe in it?

"Don't you dare take that tone of voice with me."

"This coming from the witch gripping her wand in her left hand and a vase in her right? I'm asking you whether you want the proof you so badly desire."

He stood there, so unapologetic, as if she were the one in the wrong. As if she didn't have every right to leave him here and there. What was between them if she couldn't trust? At least once a week he came home completely blitzed on the arm of either Blaise Zabini or Theodore Nott. At least once a week the tabloids had a field day with the pictures they unearthed of Draco dancing with abandon at the club, Draco in a violent altercation with yet another waiter or bartender, Draco leaving a pub with some unknown female behind him. And he honestly expected her to just 'trust him' when all the evidence pointed to the presence of a guilty party. This new behavior had only surfaced in the last month but Hermione felt as if she had been dealing with it over the span of a lifetime.

"So what will it be, my love? Proof or not?"

"You threaten me with this because you think I won't take you up on it. Get your wand then, and a vial. I want you to lay out the _entirety _of the last five weeks for me."

He stared at her, angry but not surprised. He had long known that the day would come that she would take him up on the offer. She'd flinched at the term of endearment that had not so long ago _actually _been an indication of affection. Perhaps he'd derived a bit of enjoyment out the quick jabs, the little hurts inflicted to cut her a little. Perhaps, she was bent on disbelief, in any case. They were at a cross-roads of sorts that would mark the rest of their days. They were standing at the precipice and looking over the edge. She wondered what it would feel like to spread her arms and tilt forward to fly. He wondered if the flying was the point.

Would letting go be equal parts terrifying and exhilarating? Would she regret it? Would he miss solid ground? Could she carry herself? Would he plummet?

"Completely fine with me."

He extracted the copies of memories and stoppered the four large vials that would contain them. She'd asked for it and she was going to get her proof, alright, and he was going to take flight. Her hands didn't shake when she took the vials from him. His gaze didn't waver as he pulled on his practice Quidditch robes. She set them on their bureau and glanced at her purse. For a moment, their gazes connected in some intractable intangible way that might have bound them together again. It broke when the clock above the mantelpiece chimed the eight o'clock hour.

"Don't expect me home tonight."


	4. Might Like You Better

**A/N - Last one of NaNoWriMo!**

* * *

.i'd like you better if you get up in it.

.amanda blank.

* * *

"This is a one-time thing," Hermione said. Well, panted, really. She was finding it extremely difficult to keep her lips peeled away from his mouth. She could only get in the words when her need to breath overcame her lack of self-restraint. "This is the absolute last time. Absolutely."

It was. It really _truly_ completely was the last time that she would engage in this kind of sordid behavior. They hadn't even planned this particular escapade - usually a note or an owl or something would give one or another a heads up. This time Hermione Granger had actually _meant_ to utilize the short fifteen-minute break she usually passed on. She had _meant_ to walk two streets down to that friendly little cafe that just opened on Fourth. She had even made it into the elevator. Sadly, all her plans had gone awry the minute the doors had opened to reveal Draco Malfoy. There was nothing as obvious as a glance past the initial one but he'd 'accidentally' let off some sort of heating charm in her direction, which had been all the signal she needed.

Fifteen minutes later, she was up against the wall in a secluded office with the door locked and the walls soundproofed.

"Of course it is." Was he _smirking_ at her? Damn her if he didn't look good, though. His mouth found hers again and a good minute may or may not have passed before he decided to finish his thought. "Until the next time one of us decides that it is way past time to scratch the itch."

"Except that you've been the one wanting to scratch for the last month?"

"True," Malfoy murmured into the flesh of her collarbone. He sounded increasingly distracted now-

Oh God, that was definitely his hand.

"True, but neither of the last two were quite as dramatic as the last of yours."

She'd concede that point but there was a reason behind the madness. Why Draco couldn't have just gone to lunch alone was beyond her. She'd only seen the shimmering of his blonde hair in the corner of the restaurant, and the waiter who had helped her with her message had clearly assumed that she'd known that Blaise Zabini would be shortly arriving. That or he simply hadn't thought it important enough to mention. The note had said nothing but her current table number. In any case, she certainly couldn't be blamed for the series of events that had wildly unfolded after she'd handed the waiter the note and instructed him to find a way to deliver it. For some reason the quivering boy couldn't begin to explain, the note had been _copied three times_ and made its way to two tables besides Draco's own. It didn't end there - two women had been at one, an elderly couple at the other. Hermione had fairly pinkened with embarassment when the elderly couple had eyed her as if she were the modern bearer of the scarlet letter, and one of the women at the other table had looked as if she would take her up on any offer.

Malfoy had made fun of her with pointed little unsigned notes for days afterwards.

"Fine but I had nothing to do with how that turned out."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing," she snarled before dragging her hands through his hair to pull him in close. What she wanted right now was less of his analyzing and more of his _analyzing_, if one was capable of understanding her meaning. It had been four entire weeks since she'd sworn off of clandestine meetings and if she were going to break her own oath then this was going to be one hell of a session. "Doesn't change the fact that I mean what I said."

"You don't mean what you said."

"Yes, I-"

He pushed one hand farther up her skirt and palmed her thighs. She might have managed to complete the statement had it not been for his second hand scratching the small of her back. Sadly, talk was not meant to be when there was just so much feeling to do. He pulled away from the wall and walked backwards towards the desk that she could barely make out in ecstasy somewhere behind him. She distracted him with her lips on his neck and, when he groaned, she slid up to bite his ear. She purred when he stumbled briefly - it was good to know that she was in control at the moment. That ought to teach him to interrupt her when she'd been trying to think of whatever it was they'd been arguing about.

"I do mean what I said."

That's what they had been talking about, wasn't it? She knew she'd struck correctly when he pulled away without the smirk. Or perhaps that meant that he was about to walk right off the cliff of self-control. There was this look the Slytherin always got when he became serious about what it is they met up once a month to do. It was a focus that made her hot, the way his eyes glinted just as he slipped a hand into her curls and forced her head back, how hot his fingers were when they unbuttoned her blouse. Which his fingers were currently doing, actually. She'd never quite figured out how he was so skilled at taking off her shirt without her noticing because sometimes it felt as if she blinked and found herself magically undressed. That damned look was simmering, though, and h0e was burning her up with it look right now so she knew she had to make her point before he made her mindless.

"I do mean it. One last scratch for old time's sake and then we are done."

"Feel that? Feel _me? _We are not done and you don't mean it. Besides, why should I deny myself when we both know this is purely mutual? I might not like you but it's fact that no one blows my mind quite like you do." His frankness made her blink. She wasn't sure whether to mark this down as an unorthodox form of compliment or a blase expression of opinion. "Don't think so hard about this, Granger. Right now and right here, we're good together."

"But-"

"Don't think," he repeated. He dropped her rather gently unto the desk and pushed her back unto her hands, then pushed her legs apart and stood in the space between. She would have asked him what he was thinking of with eyes so focused but she didn't think he would hear her. He whispered something that made the bobby pins holding her bun together burst out - she hated when he did that but she loved what came next so she kept quiet. He leaned forward and tangled fingers in her hair, drawing her back up into a pseudo-sitting position, pushing the shirt over her shoulders to make room for hands that soon replaced her under-wire cups. "I didn't get a chance to say this before, by the way. Bright blue looks good on you."

So he'd noticed the bra, had he?

"Very _very_ good, really." He made sure she understood just how good when he dipped his head and decided that _tasting_ was altogether more desirable than _touching_. She felt her toes curling back and tried to fight it. He hushed her first."Thankfully, I'm equally as sure that it will look even better _off_."

A hand slipped underneath her skirt again and Hermione found herself breathing harshly against his lips. When he gave her one agonizingly slow stroke, she gave up the damned fight. Malfoy was going to win this argument at present and she was going to lose it soon - that she knew was as inevitable as time itself. He pushed closer and pushed farther and she gripped his shoulders as if her life depended on it.

After all, since it was the _absolute last_ time, what else was a girl to do?


End file.
